Highlighting mental health system problems

Thursday

Jan 17, 2013 at 3:15 AM

CONCORD — At a press conference held at the Legislative Office Building in Concord on Jan. 7, Community Partners of Dover and Rochester joined the National Alliance on Mental Illness-New Hampshire (NAMI-NH) to highlight the crisis in the mental health delivery system that has NH adults and children waiting in hospital emergency rooms for an inpatient bed.

The NH Community Behavioral Health Association, representing the state’s community mental health centers, partnered with NAMI-NH and a dozen other organizations for the press conference. Louis Josephson, President and CEO of Riverbend Community Mental Health in Concord, spoke for the Association, and made these points:

The answer to this crisis is not just more beds at NH Hospital – it is building community capacity to reduce the need for inpatient admissions.

Mental health centers are at a loss trying to manage individuals in a mental health crisis who are in hospital emergency departments waiting for admission to NH Hospital.

The need is for community alternatives to inpatient hospitalizations.

NH’s community mental health system has seen rate cuts and budget cuts in recent years that have meant fewer resources to manage adults and children with severe mental illness in the community.

The NH Community Behavioral Health Association worked with the NH Department of Health and Human Services, NH Hospital and other partners six years ago to develop a 10-year mental health plan.

The 10-year plan was praised when it was released in 2008 as the best way to get NH’s community-based mental health system, once a model in the nation, back on track.

The plan is now almost five years old and has not been funded or implemented as intended.

The NH Community Behavioral Health Association and Community Partners urge state leaders to re-commit to the 10 year plan and to invest in a community-based system that we know from experience works. To do otherwise is to continue to provide barriers to necessary care and an increased risk of harm to some of our most vulnerable residents and their families.